Twsbi: In Case You Have Problem With Your Twsbi Pen

[le_paulo]

I have to say I am thankful for both sides of the TWSBI story being shared - I read this and other threads carefully before pulling the trigger and notwithstanding my fellow Aussies having problems with their pens I have now purchased 2 TWSBIs - an amber 540 Bold which is just stunning but too thick a line for my taste and today I received a 580 Fine which is fantastic too.

 

Both pens were opened and loaded up immediately with Noodlers Bulletproof Polar Blue ink. No pre-washing, flushing, rinsing or priming. No lizards were harmed nor chicken blood spilt. No secret FPN incantations or other prayers. Just loaded up from the box and put to work. And I mean work - these pens are my legal drafting, editing and signing pens.

 

Both worked out of the box. They are both smooth, wet writers and have given me less up-front hassles than my Lamys, Namiki and even a few of my custom nibs tuned by the best in the world.

 

That said - everyone needs to think very carefully, caveat emptor, before buying cheap pens from the other side of the world...

[de_pen_dent]

While I too do not live in the US, and have had problems with some of my TWSBI pens, Philip has been very good about solving the problems. I sent them 2 pens back for repairs - 1 came back fixed, i still not fixed. At that point, they sent me a spare nib unit for free.

 

I'm not that thrilled about their QC, but I've had nothing but positive experiences with their service.

 

I am resigned to generally paying for international shipping in case I need to send anything back for repairs. That is pretty much SOP. So while I can see the OP's point that it sucks to pay so much in shipping, I dont think TWSBI is unique in that regard. And while it would have been great if they had offered to pay for round trip int'l shipping, I wouldnt really expect it or be upset if they didnt.

 

As for the rest of it, at some point, I think it may have escalated based on cultural perceptions or differing viewpoints. Certainly, that is quite unusual for TWSBI.

Edited June 20, 2013 by de_pen_dent

[Mags]

I have a few 540's, a vac700, a mini. Email exchanges with a Philip Wang were prompt and he followed up quickly adjusting my order.

 

Shipping these pens back makes no sense to me as costs of shipping, customs forms, etc really make these pens disposable from my view point.....therein is the rub. If you bought a bad bic pen or two you may be indifferent at 29-35 cents a pen. So far my TWSBI pens all worked. The 540 and Mini work the best...all did require by me a nib adjustment in all cases to make the pen wetter. I have seem some hairline cracks on one pen and will make it a parts pen when it goes after 2 years.

[Dillo]

Hi,

 

I think that when it comes down to it, email isn't a perfect system. I've had cases when lots of emails from certain senders seem to get "lost" or disappear without explanation or not even end up in my spam folder. Gmail has an automatic filter that removes messages that are "definitely" spam, but it puts the rest of the messages that are like spam but not into the junk folder. It's better than most, granted, but I had a time in uni where all of my professor's emails got lost or tossed into my spam.

 

Also, TWSBI nibs are made by Jowo or Bock. I'm pretty sure the nib collars and feeds aren't made by them either. Most manufacturers are like this, they buy their nibs from Jowo or Bock. In these nibs, baby bottoms and other defects are from the Jowo or Bock and not usually the manufacturer of the pen itself. Sometimes it can be difficult to track a problem with the nibs and feeds of these things until some time has passed. I don't know if anyone remembers the whole fiasco about six years ago when many companies that use the Bock #6 nib got a run of defective feeds for their pens. Among the affected were Taccia, Stipula, and Bexley and a number of other brands. Nibs would just stop writing randomly and stop and start erratically, be starved, or start skipping. These were very frustrating, and many people swore off certain brands of pens, and I spent months trying to figure out what could be done to these feeds. In the ends, I requested a stockpile of new feeds, and I replaced feeds that had the issue that came into my shop. I, of course, had customers who were sick of sending their pens back and forth and just got rid of them. This is one of the things that happened to TWSBI with the Vac 700 initially. Baby-bottomed nibs are another matter altogether. Oftentimes, it is much better to send these to someone who can inspect and test the nibs and is skilled enough to fix them well. Many times, people send baby bottomed nibs to the manufacturer get something just as faulty when they get their pens back since those are nibs the company was provided. The worse though is if the company makes their own nibs and have a tendency to put out a lot of baby bottomed nibs. I think baby-bottomed nibs are the plague of newer pens. Although many pens don't come with them, many do as well. Sometimes I wonder if it is caused because people expect nibs that are buttery smooth, and some manufacturers of nibs overcompensate by overpolishing their nibs to the point that they over round off edges that are supposed to be more squared yet only slightly rounded.

 

Here are some nib tips to compare.

 

First, one that is too sharp on the edges. The sharp edges cut into the paper. This type isn't so common.

 

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3676/9229823919_69c12739d4_b.jpg

 

Now, for a normal nib. Both tines are level, and there is very slight rounding to the edges of the nib slit. The rounding is slightly exaggerated here. More toothy nibs have that part rounded off slightly so that they don't cut paper but have more feedback. These don't skip.

 

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3813/9232606726_a2c1e1a6a7_b.jpg

Now, for a baby-bottomed nib. Make note of the blue line that shows what needs to be ground away to fix this nib. Also note the pink empty space. Ink cannot go through this empty space.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5467/9229825569_83d17bfaec_b.jpg

 

Now for a misaligned nib. Make note that the rounder the edges, the smoother the nib will be even if the tines are misaligned. Sometime I wonder if since the baby bottom phenomenon allows nibs that are out of alignment to still write without cutting the paper, manufacturers tend to make baby bottomed nibs so that they don't need to worry about aligning their nibs precisely. Also note the empty space. Some of these skip too. In most cases, they just cut the paper.

 

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5543/9229826427_8c86cef0ea_b.jpg

 

I think this a big issue we face. Make note that people often say that Aurora nibs tend to be more toothy. They tend to round their edges less. I've found though, that in most cases, realignment of the nib often results in a buttery smooth nib that never skips, even in the worse conditions. All of my Auroras, and I have many, both vintage and new are very smooth pens. I didn't regrind any of them. My Montblanc on the other hand has a completely reground nib tip since the original was severely baby-bottomed. Make note that nibs can be made out of alignment just by screwing in the nib unit. I always realign nibs first off the pens to set the general alignment, then do fine tuning once the nib has been set and installed to ensure everything is in alignment. Also note that nibs can have perfectly polished surfaces and still write without skipping. All of my pens that I have reground or own have perfectly mirror-finished surfaces, but none of them skip at all. Also note that there is a continuum of possibilities between sharp, normal, and baby-bottomed. The corner radius of the edges of the tips can vary, and there is no single formula for all nibs. How rounded the inside of the tip can be before the pen skips varies depending on the feed installed as well as the width and taper of the nib slit. One must know what exactly what they are doing when adjusting nibs. I also recommend using old film without an emulsion or plastics to adjust the nib slit of amateurs instead of using a razor blade. Damage to the interior surfaces of the nib slit is difficult if possible to repair and can cause other problems besides cosmetic damage. Plastic can be more gentle and more effective at solving the problem. If you need some plastic shims from emulsionless developed photography film, I still shoot film in addition to digital, and I can probably drop a few small pieces in the mail for you to help you out.

 

In the end, I think these problems, especially nib problems can be hard to figure out without some experience. I wonder why some companies like Pilot have an incredibly high yield rate of good nibs, especially such that they can make disposable fountain pens with excellent quality tipped nibs. In all their pens that I have seen with fine nibs, very few of them needed adjustment to write smoothly without skipping out of the box. In fact, none of the Pilot pens in my collection, whether modern or vintage, needed any adjustment to write well, and I haven't adjusted them at all since they somehow came out of the box all perfect. I think they must be doing something right. I have had good luck with Montblanc pens made by Mutschler, but a lot less luck with their modern nibs. Montblanc nibs are the ones I see most often for adjustments instead of regrinds. I see far more Bock and Jowo nibs for custom regrinds since many pens have them (most of them were writing perfectly. The owner just wanted them to write differently). I'm a Pelikan dealer, and with Pelikan, depending on the age of the pen and type of nib, different nibs have different tendencies. In many cases, there are runs of nibs that happen to have certain tendencies over others but still are "in spec" but don't work properly. Also, since everyone is different, nibs are necessarily different as well, and one nib that doesn't work properly for one person might be okay for another person to use, and a nib that is too sharp for one person can be perfect for another. I happen to know someone who likes really sharp italics with only slightly rounded corners. They work really well and smoothly for me as well, and I can also write quickly with them, but most other people I know want more rounded off corners than I do and consider this person's perfect nib "too sharp." People have different writing pressures, different angles of attack, and different ranges of rotation that they put their nibs through. These must be all accounted for when making and grinding a nib for a customer. Last but not least, for professional work, the work has to look good as well as perform well. One should not be shy or embarrassed of posting huge macro images of nib tips that not only write well, but are are beautifully shaped and polished.

 

Dillon

[AAN]

What an informative post, thanks for the clear explanation and diagrams. I marvel at the variety of nibs I have that write beautifully, yet differently from each other. I think I'll try taking some macro photos of them and seeing what it it that makes them write so well

thanks again for this.

Andrew

[TheVintagelife]

I'm very saddened to hear about the bad experience that AAN, msolok and some others have had.

 

My experience with their customer service has been quite different. As I explained in the other post (TWSBI 580 nib/feed problems) I also had the seemingly persistent problem of the flow drying up after the initial few sentences. This is definitely a QC issue and there is no justification for so many pens to have this problem. $50 is not a throwaway pen price after all, and the Lamy Al-Stars and Safaris, and the comparable priced pilots for example, seem to work fine all the time.

 

Anyway, the initial reaction I got to my email to TWSBI (I bought directly from their online store) was disappointing in the least. I was told (like another member here) to hold the tines together and squeeze into the paper. This was not a solution I was looking for, and predictably, it didnt work. After reading the entries in this and the other post, I thought that was it.

 

However, next morning I got a email form Rebecca stating a replacement nib-feed assembly will be mailed to me and subsequently this was done. So basically the problem was satisfactorily addressed in 12-16 hours which is really good.

 

The pen itself is fantastic. I like the crystal-like effects on the barrel, and it looks very nice with PR Plum ink inside it. Having nothing to lose (since replacement nib-feed is on the way), I dissembled it, and ran a razor down the channel of the feed. It seems to work much better now, and is very smooth and just appropriately wet. While this process ended well for me, it is not an excuse for poor QC, as it is unfair to expect customers to do this. It could easily go wrong and the tampering will give the retailer/manufacturer the way out of their warranty obligations.

 

My commendations of their service is not intended to detract from or be a rebuttal to the genuine problems faced by others, such AAN or msolok, in this forum in dealing with TWSBI directly. In fact, the inconsistency in treatment is concerning in its own way. However, I thought my positive experience should also be put out there for those who are totally turned off from purchasing TWSBI based on this post.

 

 

 

Shuddho

 

[mhguda]

I am one of those who based on this and some other posts have reversed my decision to buy TWSBI.

Frankly, your post does not make any difference in this decision: I think it illustrates the completely random way TWSBI responds to customers. What I'd taken away from all the posts in these threads is that, except if you're in the USA, where service seems to be excellent, you take your chances on getting acceptable service in case of a problem. That, given their mailing policies that have also been made clear, is just not good enough for me. In fact, it is a reason for me to stop buying from another vendor, not at all related, who also has an excellent reputation for customers in the USA - when you're not, his return policy sucks big time, and since I've now had two instances one right after the other, I have decided not to buy there anymore. Notwithstanding great prices, great selection of pens, and fast shipping.

[PMG92]

I just had contact via E-mail with Philip Wang from customer service. He suggested me to send the pen back if I lived in the US and if not they could send me a new nib unit. I already mentioned I bought a replacement unit and that it didn't solve the problem, but it doesn't hurt to try another nib. I am very satisfied with how fast I received a reply from TWSBI, very satisfied with the Customer service so far. I hope this solves the problem.

[mhguda]

Well, it does seem to me that a few pointers are being picked up from the discussion, here, proving, to my mind, that it and others like it may have some added value. And very nice that TWSBI customer service is amending its policy about shipping replacements... Congratulations!

[msolok]

Well, it does seem to me that a few pointers are being picked up from the discussion, here, proving, to my mind, that it and others like it may have some added value. And very nice that TWSBI customer service is amending its policy about shipping replacements... Congratulations!

 

I agree, as long as they are doing it in a fair and consistent way. As long as everyone is being treated fairly and giving the same options I think it's a great thing.

 

Unfortunately TWSBI has yet to offer me the same option. In fact my last correspondence was when my partner tried to put in an order with TWSBI using my account. We got correspondence from TWSBI pretty quickly afterwards basically saying they don't want my custom and refunding the money.

[mhguda]

Msolok, I'm glad you say that here - that too is important information for people who have not yet made the decision to buy.

It strengthens my conviction that I did the right thing in emptying my shopping cart and spending my pen money elsewhere.

But it does not seem very fair to me that a customer who insists on their rights gets treated as persona non grata by a company that rode roughshod over those rights...

Well, luckily, there are other good pens. I hope you find many more that you do like, and that work better for you.

[Harlequin]

I'm not so sure I agree that it is the customer's "right" to demand only one side bear all costs for a transaction, regardless of the reason. It may be custom, it may be best for the company in terms of public relation, but unless prescribed by law, I sincerely doubt that it is a "right". If it IS prescribed by law, then it is up to the customer to make sure to enforce their rights through the proper legal avenues.

[mhguda]

It is easy to say that from the vantage point of the USA, where mailing your defective pen in does not cost about half of the pen new - and there is no other way of getting what you actually bought and paid for, a correctly working pen.

If sending the pen to the supplier or manufacturer costs half of what the pen cost, AND the pen is reasonably expensive (I do not think $50 or $70 for a fountainpen is cheap), and you have a choice of complying or eating your loss, you might look at this differently. But in any case, those kind of considerations make me personally shy away from TWSBI. I don't want to run this risk.

Also, note that others get a completely different treatment - they don't even have to mail the pen in, they just get a replacement for the defective part, and this choice was never offered to msolok. So, TWSBI arbitrarily gives some customers preferential treatment? I guess it's their right, but I'm glad to hear about it - I don't want to become their customer and find out down the line that they've decided I don't qualify for preferential treatment.

[Harlequin]

See, that's the contentious point. I don't consider it "preferential treatment" for a company to decide how much they will do, in the name of public relations or after sales service, according to how much it costs them.

Additionally, it seems like you think that it is ok for the company to have to "eat the loss", as compared to the customer. Why is that fair? IIRC, they offered to split the cost evenly for returning the pen, which is far more equitable.

[mhguda]

See, that's the contentious point. I don't consider it "preferential treatment" for a company to decide how much they will do, in the name of public relations or after sales service, according to how much it costs them.

 

Additionally, it seems like you think that it is ok for the company to have to "eat the loss", as compared to the customer. Why is that fair? IIRC, they offered to split the cost evenly for returning the pen, which is far more equitable.

He bought the pen new. It never worked right. It was not a question of him having had the pen and damaged it, he bought their product, and it was not as advertised - it was not working right. In such a case, I think it eminently reasonable that the company eat the loss. He already paid for them to send him the pen. The pen should have a working nib. Additionally, their return policy is to use a very costly shipping method, by courier, IIRC.

And, for what it's worth, other pen sellers, when such a thing happens, have sent me a new pen upon receipt of my emailed complaint - without demanding I send them the pen. Yes, a less expensive pen, but still.

[Harlequin]

Just to play Devil's Advocate, I'll take TWSBI's side here (and notice this is purely hypothetical, I am not insinuating anything, so no one try to make my comments out to be doing that).

 

A customer claims he received 3 different pens with three different nibs and they were ALL faulty "from the box". TWSBI, I have to believe, is of the opinion that their pens passed their QC tests, as they said. So as far as they are concerned, the pens were working just fine when they left the factory/shipping point/whatever. Now, if that is the case, there are only three reasons why they wouldn't work when the customer gets them- something happened during shipping (not likely but possible), the customer messed each one up in succession but won't admit it (very likely), or magic (also not very likely). Expecting TWSBI to just bow down to every single, highly unlikely (in their opinion) instance of someone claiming that their product was 100% faulty across a spectrum of nibs and models, is simply naive.

 

Was that in fact the case here? No clue. But do I fault TWSBI for perhaps thinking that and balking at assuming the entire cost for everything like this customer wanted? Not at all. Additionally (and you can reread the threads to be sure, as I did), it was the customer in question who was keen on sending via courier, not TWSBI, so that point is completely invalid.

 

Simply put, unless I am mistaken, TWSBI's solution (which is probably pretty standard) is for the customer to send the pen back to them and they will repair or replace it. In this case, the customer wants special exceptions to be made b/c that solution is expensive for him and he doesn't trust the normal mail system. With a global customer base, it frankly is not TWSBI's problem where you live or if you trust your government's mail. IIRC, the pens were sent originally via FedEx perhaps to avoid issues like that. To even just send out replacement parts to someone they (more than likely) think messed up the nibs to begin with makes even less sense, since that kind of customer will do the same thing and then still demand a replacement or repair (sent at TWSBI's cost).

[msolok]

I will point out at this stage that at no point did TWSBI ask for evidence or examples of this issue. They also failed to offer to cover half the cost of shipping until one of the last emails they sent me (never offered in my first lot of emails after I recieved the pens, and only offered after they had started ranting and raving at me). On top of this TWSBI also reneged on a promise to replace the nibs, in one email promising to send out new nib units and the next calling my a liar.I fully accept that some of the cost to have the pens repaired might be on me. But the issue became how TWSBI was treating me as a customer, how abusive they have become (especially when I wasn't asking thrm anything but simply illistrating there might be a current QC issue with the number of pens being reported with issues), and a general inconsistant manner of addressing issues (Some customers getting replacement nib units sent out without any issues, others getting a run around and left out of pocket and others again seeminglg being ignored).

 

Harlequin: See above. TWSBI did not offer to pay for half the shipping until very late in our emails. This was after they were ranting at me and after they had reneged on other things they had promised previously. The issue isn't the cost, it's TWSBI's treatment of some customers and the uneven way they deal with issues.

[AAN]

I said I wouldn't post on this issue anymore, but I can't resist just this quick one!

 

i bought my TWSBI pen, didn't work. I bought a second nib, it didn't work either. That's got to be a quality control issue.

 

When I contacted TWSBI for advice, not a refund or freebies, they ignored my first two emails then didn't address the actual points made in my friendly and polite email.

 

What sticks in my craw is that TWSBI are merrily promoting their products on FPN, but ignoring a proportion of customer complaints.

[hari317]

The only Twsbi that I have is a new 540 given to me by a very dear friend from the USA last year, I have kept it safely, un-inked as a token of our friendship. I am very disappointed to read how TWSBI is treating some of the non US customers. Personally, IMO, I never saw the value in their pens, their engineering design choices and iterations and now with these kind of reports, I think they will never get my money.

[nomadhacker]

There seems to be a little heated discussion starting up here again, by people not personally involved in the issue. I don't think it's necessarily fair without having read the emails to draw any conclusions other than that you may want to be careful buying from international companies who don't have domestic distributors.

 

The fact is they don't pay shipping in general. Nor does any other pen company I've dealt with. In the USA this is not generally a big deal. I understand that it may feel unfair to someone living in Australia (in this example) to have to pay a bigger shipping charge (although the shipping costing half the pen is in this case due to the customer's wanting a different shipping option and not the normal shipping method). There is still a disparity and it can feel unfair to pay more due to just where you happen to olive for the same service.

 

However, they offered to pay what would have been the regular amount of shipping, which as I've pointed out before is more than anyone gets from most pen companies. Someone from the US still pays all of their own shipping cost to the repair facility. (And some other companies insist the customer pay shipping both ways).

 

(One could make the argument that that could be considered preferential treatment since other customers don't get free shipping.)

 

I don't think it fair to assume that the pen faults were the fault of the customer (I know that's not what you were saying but it could be read that way if not read carefully) It does seem a statistical anomaly, but it could just as easily be due to them all coming from the same batch.

 

Edit : One can definitely see some trends with quality control and particular issues following certain pen lines. To their credit they have not denied these issues generally, and they do seem to have improved things with some nib issues and cracking with some pens. But I don't think anyone including TWSBi would be able to honestly consider their QC infallible

 

(Just a note here that I have had repairs done by TWSBI, and Stipula, and I returned a Kaweco to Jetpens. In all of these cases I paid the shipping to them and they paid the shipping back. I was very happy with all of these transactions. I have not heard of a pen company paying for shipping both ways in any other case.)

 

On the note of people getting inconsistent email communications, sometimes email is rejected at the SMTP gateway (without even getting to the email program to be sorted into the junk folder) just because of the IP address neighborhood it comes from. I think it might be a good idea for anyone who ever is told their emails aren't getting through to check with their email provider to make sure they aren't getting blocked. The same with what are called reverse DNS entries. Improper setup of these things can get your email rejected outright by some--but not all--email recipient servers. It can seem strange when some people get your emails fine and others don't, but it's all in the servers between you.

Edited July 13, 2013 by nomadhacker